Tuesday morning was re-cycling pickup day for Sanitation. The trucks had a nail-biting hard time trying to move East on St. Marks Ave. due to the double-parked, traffic-clotting Bais Yaakov yellow buses from the residential streets. I asked a Sanitman if he couldn't get the NYPD or Sanitation Enforcement to clear out the double-parked buses. He threw up his hands: "They're [buses] everywhere! Flatbush Avenue is chaos! They're [cops/NYPD] not gonna do anything! They're [15,000 Orthodox teenage girls] Jewish!"

The car of a neighbor [lawyer] -- who drives 1 1/4 hours to work in a nearby state -- was trapped in front of her house at 110 St. Marks Ave. by a Bais Yaakov bus from Grandpa's Bus Co. When she asked why the buses were double-parked on St. Marks a couple of the bus drivers told her they had been directed to park their buses on the South side of St. Marks Ave. Trouble was, Tuesday was alternate side parking for the South side of St. Marks. When the lawyer explained her car's entrapment to a nice cop he said: "If a sweeper comes up the street you'll have to move -- or you'll get a ticket."

Next, I asked a young guy wearing a chartreuse-green "SSE -- Pedestrian Management -- Pedestrian Safety" vest if he could get the buses off St. Marks Ave. "No. I'm from Sam Schwartz Engineering. We do pedestrian management!" Dozens of Sam Schwartz pedestrian managers had been hired by the Ratarena. They stretched from Atlantic Avenue up Flatbush to Grand Army Plaza & on crossing streets. (Gridlock Sam is a famous TRAFFIC ENGINEER -- but not on Tuesday.)

After that I visited the 78th Precinct. Couldn't the cops ticket all the illegally parked buses? "No." Then "They'll be gone pretty soon..." Well, why were so many cops detailed to Flatbush Avenue? "We have to make sure the buses aren't idling for 4 hours: engines turned off." (At one point I was told the directive to do nothing about the illegally parked buses had come down from "on high.")

On Flatbush at Carlton Ave. I ran into another neighbor, Robert Keith. [For years he's been documenting/protesting the abuse/illegal use of the residential streets in this 'hood -- Carlton Ave., Park Place, St. Marks Ave., Dean St. ere Ratner-narrowing -- by the Orthodox buses that run all day between Borough Park and Williamsburg -- with all the women relegated to-the-back-of-the-bus.] Mr. Keith told me he had chased away a Bais Yaakov bus that had tried to park in front of his house at 641 Carlton Avenue. He was amazed to be confronted by solid lines of parked yellow buses walling off both sides of Flatbush Avenue. He was furiously shooting pix of 300 yellow buses (& some white ones) as far as the eye could see on Flatbush Ave. "Next time a cop tries to ticket me -- I show 'em these pictures!" Merchants & restaurants on Flatbush could not take deliveries. NYC bus-riders could not board MTA Buses due to a solid 10 blocks of yellow Bais Yaakov buses blocking Bus Stops.

Finally, about 12:45PM the 15,000 Bais Yaakov girls, 9th-12th grades, from Canada and all over the U.S., streamed up Flatbush Ave. I asked for a translation of the big pin -- with Hebrew writing -- many wore. One girl explained: "It's from the Torah. It says we have to do what's right and be modest." By 1:30 the yellow buses had moved on.

This sort of "exceptionalism" is extremely disruptive to life in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. How come NYC allows/condones it? Will anyone be held accountable for the traffic chaos on Tuesday, March 17, 2015? Can the residents of Prospect Heights be guaranteed NO REPEATS?